1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns an imaging method for medical diagnostics as well as an imaging device operating according to this method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In medical diagnostics, in a series of application cases different imaging methods are used simultaneously or successively in order to facilitate the diagnosis or to avoid misdiagnoses. For example, in urology it is known to implement both an endoscopic examination and an x-ray examination. In an endoscopic method, high-resolution, color, optical images are generated in real time in the viewing direction of the endoscope. Each image, however, offers only two-dimensional information of the state of a section of the inner surface of the cavity and no information from deeper slices or in other viewing directions. In an x-ray method, information is also acquired from regions that are not visible in an endoscopy image. The linking of individual or multiples endoscopic images with one or more x-ray images of the same body require on the part of the observer not only a precise knowledge of the anatomy but also a developed three-dimensional spatial sense that must first be learned and frequently leads to misinterpretations. Moreover, pathological structures often deviate in a complex manner from the standard, such that a linking of endoscopy images and x-ray images is made more difficult.
One of the causes for these difficulties is that the methods normally used in addition to endoscopy (for example magnetic resonance methods or ultrasound methods in addition to the aforementioned x-ray methods) provide slice images of the examination subject, while in an endoscopy image only a boundary surface between an optically permeable medium and an optically impermeable medium is presented on a two-dimensional image plane.